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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Opera, Great performance ,Splendid Sound Quality, August 6, 2003
This review is from: Britten: Billy Budd ~ Hampson (Audio CD)
My own bias: Melville lover. This is the only 20th century opera in English I've ever found really emotionally involving as a drama. It's a unique blend of 20th century sensibility and 20th century style with, somehow a 19th century flavor. Note how Billy's Act IV moonlight reflections on his execution set for the dawn is set to the same gentle rocking figure that Berlioz used for Hylas' lonely song in Les Troyens. I wonder whether it is even possible that Britten in 1950 could have known that Berlioz piece. The libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier is a wonderful humanizing of Melville's hard crystalline cerebral story of a good man confronting fathomless evil, and "having" to abet the evil by killing a purely good man for the "greater good" of his ship and country. They manage to get across a great deal of the complexity of Melville's short novel while adding opportunities for warmth and humor. And manage to make a slightly fatuous "Captain Vere has become a good man due to his contact with Billy" ending a reasonably acceptable conclusion even to someone like me who would prefer to leave the tale as Melville did, without that comforting thought.
Britten takes full advantage of every opportunity Forster and Crozier give him, setting scenes that move like good drama, with sweep and pace, and creates an unforgettable ending with the brass writing for Billy's hanging somehow dangling and twisting in the air with his body (never seen in either of the two productions I've seen) No need. Britten is both eyes and ears here.
I've never seen this 4-act version, just the 2-act revision
usually staged. Much was lost in the cutting. This recording is in really magnificent full throated sound with a very strong cast singing wonderfully and Kent Nagano never missing an opportunity for meaningfull phrasing. He instills, improbably but beautifully, a delicacy which is a perfect counterbalance to the vastness of the story and the orchestral force involved. I can see that i've gushed here. This recording deserves it. One of the treasures of my collection.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breath-taking, November 26, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Britten: Billy Budd ~ Hampson (Audio CD)
This is not only a magnificent opera; on this recording, it's a manificent-SOUNDING opera. The aural quality on these two discs is clear and crisp, putting the listener in the thick of it immediately. All of the performances are first-rate; Thomas Hampson strikes a fine balance between tragedy and bravery as Billy and his duets with Richard Van Allen (playing Dansker, Billy's shipmate and friend) are especially powerful. But the finest of the performances is unquestionably Anthony Rolfe Johnson's as Captain Vere; he's given a great role and he makes the most of it, showing all of the captain's anguish at the choices he knows he must make. This full version of the opera is the one to get and sets a high standard for future recordings.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A riveting live performance, in great sound, October 26, 2005
This review is from: Britten: Billy Budd ~ Hampson (Audio CD)
The British prefer Britten operas not to be overly exciting, and even the composer's classic Decca recording of Billy Budd is much less dynamic than the premiere performance from 1951, which can still be heard in serviceable pirated mono (VAI). Kent Nagaon changed all that with this riveting live performance from 1997 with the Halle Orchestra, playing as if their lives depended on it. The full oppression and buried anger of the sailors is caught from the very first and builds with tremendous force to the moment when they witness, through frightening wordless agony, the hanging of Billy Budd.
Nagano conducts the original 4-act version, but his tempos are vigorous enough to capture the whole opera on 2 CDs (other recordings, even of the revised 2-act version, take three). Abetted by sonics that are super-charged with vitality, Nagaono papers over the stretches of less-than-compelling music that crop up, and he uses ever-shifting orchestral color to enliven the potential monotony of an all-male opera.
Of the leads, Rolfe-Johnson stands out for his haunted, emotionallly driven Vere, the best reading in dramatic terms since Pears premiered the role. Hampson doesn't sound as young as Simon Keenlyside on the Hickox set, or as charmistmatic and innocent as Thomas Uppmann at the premiere, but he is a great interpreter of this role, once you accept that he often sounds more like Thomas Hampson than a gang-pressed British sailor. Halfverson sings a dark Claggart with plenty of ocnviction, but there is wobble in his voice, and it clouds his diciton. The minor roles are sung very well; the chorus is the best on ecords.
Altogether, this is a riveting musical experience, and it should convert many American listeners to one of the masterpieces of opera in English, a work fully the equal and in some ways the superior to Peter Grimes, which is much better known in this country.
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